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BRAZIL-DAM-COLLAPSE-MINING
Fears rise for 300 missing in Brazil dam disaster; 9 bodies recovered
BRUMADINHO, Brazil, Jan 26, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Rescuers worked overnight into
Saturday searching for around 300 people missing after a dam collapse at a
mine in southeast Brazil killed at least nine, but the local governor said
“odds are minimal” that they would be found alive.
Seven bodies were recovered Friday hours after the disaster, which saw a
torrent of mud break through the disused dam at the iron-ore mine close to
the city of Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerias, around 1:00 pm.
By early Saturday the official death toll had risen to nine, with “nearly
300 people missing,” the local firefighters said, doubling the number of
people presumed missing from the previous toll.
Up to 150 of those missing worked in the company’s administrative offices
which were closest to the dam break, the firefighters said.
The mine is owned by Vale, a Brazilian mining giant that was involved in a
previous 2015 mine collapse in the same state that claimed 19 lives and is
regarded as the country’s worst-ever environmental disaster.
Vale shares plummeted on the new accident, losing eight percent in New York
trading.
Romeu Zema, the governor of Minas Gerais, told reporters that, while all
was being done to find survivors, “from now, the odds are minimal and it is
most likely we will recover only bodies.”
His regional administration said 427 people had been working at the Vale
mine at the time of the dam collapse, and 279 were recovered alive. The
others were listed as missing.
– Bolsonaro to visit –
The massive, muddy flow from the collapse barreled towards the nearby town
of Brumadinho, population 39,000, but did not hit it directly.
Instead, it carved its way across roads, vegetation and farmland, taking
down a bridge, and damaging or destroying homes.
Television images showed people being pulled out of waist-high mud into
rescue helicopters, dozens of which were in use by late Friday because of the
cut-off land access.
Brazil’s new government led by President Jair Bolsonaro reacted to its
first big emergency since taking office early this month by launching
disaster coordination between the defense, mining and environment ministries
and authorities in the affected state of Minas Gerais.
Bolsonaro and his defense minister were scheduled to fly over the zone on
Saturday. His environment minister raced to the area late Friday.
“Where are our relatives?” wailed Raquel Cristina, one of several people
demanding information about their missing kin in the mud-hit area.
“My five-year-old nephew is asking me if his dad died. What do I tell him?”
asked another, Olivia Rios.
Officials said they were working through the night, conscious of the
precious hours ticking away.
Around 100 fire fighters were deployed, some using earth-moving machinery
to dig down to engulfed dwellings.
Would-be rescue volunteers were warned away because of the slippery,
perilous piles of mud. Media were urged not to use drones to avoid collisions
with the helicopters.
– ‘Human tragedy’ –
Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman called the incident a “human tragedy” and was
resigned to more deaths being confirmed at his company’s mine.
“We’re talking about probably a large number of victims — we don’t know
how many but we know it will be a high number,” he told a media conference in
Rio de Janeiro.
Schvartsman, who had his two-year term renewed last month by Vale’s board,
said it was an “inactive dam” that was in the process of being decommissioned
that burst apart “very violently, very suddenly.”
Its contents — tailings, or mining byproducts mixed with water — cascaded
into another dam, which overflowed, he said.
The disaster recalled trauma from the 2015 dam break near Mariana, in Minas
Gerais. That accident released millions of tons of toxic iron waste along
hundreds of kilometers (miles). Vale was joint operator of that dam, along
with the Anglo-Australian group BHP.
The Brazil office of Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, said
Friday’s dam break was “a sad consequence of the lessons not learned by the
Brazilian government and the mining companies.”
It said the incidents “are not accidents but environmental crimes that must
be investigated, punished and repaired.”
BSS/AFP/GMR/1252 hrs